No Wrong Way to Mourn
by fbeauchamphartz
Summary: After things in Kurt's life go horribly wrong, he turns to drugs and alcohol to dull the pain. But even when everyone in his life leaves him, one surprising person stays behind to help him pick up the pieces. Kurt H. Sebastian S.


**A/N:** _Based on the anon prompt from the number AU list #36 "I wish I could hate you" and another anon prompt "something really bad happens to Kurt and Sebastian helps him put his life back together." Warning for mention and description of hard drug use, angst, sort of Blaine unfriendly, and death of Kurt's father._

Not returning his texts.

Not answering his calls.

Sebastian's alarm is set to go off in three hours and he hasn't even been to bed yet.

It's nights like this when Sebastian wants to strangle Kurt.

Sebastian pulls up to the curb and parks his car, thankful that enough people have apparently gone home for the night that he can find a parking space fairly close to his location. He gets out and locks up, shelving his unease at parking his Mustang anywhere in the Bronx that doesn't have an underground lot. He's already been to three of the five Boroughs, stopped in some skeevy neighborhoods, and almost got carjacked once.

Ah. The glamorous perks of being a sponsor.

But he'll punch that out on a bag at the gym some time tomorrow. Right now, he's just looking forward to wrapping up and getting home.

Sebastian pushes a hand through his hair as he sprints down the sidewalk, heading for the bar entrance. He scowls when his hand comes back wet. It's 2 a.m., it's 96 fucking degrees, and even with the a/c on in his car full blast driving down the highway, he's sweating like a dog. Luckily though, this is the last bar on his list. If Kurt isn't there…well, he'll cross that bridge when he gets to it.

The bar looks mostly empty - a few stragglers here and there, sitting at tables with their heads bowed over their drinks, a couple with their foreheads resting against their folded arms, probably passed out till last call.

Which is basically Kurt, melting into a stool, face down on the bar, three empty glasses gathered around his head. Anyone who's known him since high school would have a difficult time recognizing him with his spiked purple hair, dressed in ripped jeans, a black tank, and his Docs – his basic bar-hopping get-up ever since he traded in shopping at Abercrombie and Brooks Brothers for Hot Topic and Spencer's.

In fact, the only person who got the honor of seeing this transformation was Sebastian. Oddly enough, he was the one person who seemed to be around. A lot of shit went down before Sebastian moved to New York to attend NYU that he didn't get the full story on - partially because at first he didn't care, and partially because the only other person from the New Directions that Sebastian really talked to was Blaine and aside from making Sebastian promise that he'd keep an eye out for Kurt, Blaine wasn't talking. But from what Sebastian had gathered over the course of drunken conversations, there was something about a promise for all of Kurt's friends to meet on a corner and they never did. Then he and Blaine broke up and Blaine moved back to Ohio to live with Dave Karofsky.

If he remembered correctly, Dave Karofsky had bullied Kurt, had even threatened at one point to kill him, so Blaine's agreeing to enter into a relationship with that man was the part Sebastian had the hardest time understanding, but then again, he didn't care.

Kurt seemed to handle all that pretty well. A beer here, a shot of tequila there, just enough to take away the edge. That's how Sebastian and Kurt met back up, at a night club in Manhattan – Kurt was catching the cab that Sebastian was getting out of…and threw up on Sebastian's shoes.

The real start of Kurt's downfall happened over Thanksgiving, when he faked being sick to get out of going home that year, afraid he would be forced to attend some football game or choir competition at his old high school and run into Blaine and Dave. He didn't think he could handle it. He needed more time.

He and his dad got into a fight over it. Kurt hung up on him without saying _I love you_ , figuring he would give himself and his dad the night to cool off and call him in the morning.

Kurt's stepmom Carole called Kurt early the next day to tell him that his father had passed away.

About a month after that – after going back to Ohio for the funeral, after the run-in with Blaine _and_ Dave that Kurt was hoping to avoid – Sebastian got his first phone call.

It was funny, because he didn't even remember when he had officially given Kurt his phone number.

That's back when Kurt still looked like Kurt, and it took him only two shots of tequila to call it quits.

Lately, he looks like crap, and the stuff he uses to dull the pain is way more dangerous.

Sebastian watches Kurt from the doorway - namely his back to see if he's still breathing, which is impossible to see with the scrawny, coked-out, 5-foot nothing bar-fly buzzing around him, trying to wake him up.

 _Shit!_ Sebastian thinks, staring, praying that Kurt didn't OD.

The man bothering Kurt isn't getting any response, and Sebastian knows he has to get Kurt out of there fast. He hurries in, past the tables and the bowed heads, straight to the bar and Kurt. The man with the helter-skelter eyes glares at Sebastian as Sebastian enters Kurt's space, pulling at his shoulders to get a better look at his face.

"Jesus Christ, Kurt," Sebastian breaths, eyes glued to a face paler than normal, paler than healthy, purple rings piling up beneath his closed eyes, his nose red, the skin beneath stained with dried blood. "Hummel?" Sebastian slaps Kurt's cheeks. "Princess? Come on. Wakey-wakey. Time to go."

"Hey!" the man twitching around them yells, as if he's trying to be heard over a noise no one else hears. "He's mine for the night. I fronted him, now he's got to pay up."

"Kurt?" Sebastian says, ignoring the jittery bastard and smacking Kurt's cheeks harder, talking right in his ear. "Kurt? Wake up." Sebastian looks over the glasses on the bar. He picks up a glass of water with ice in it and empties it in Kurt's face. It works. Kurt opens his eyes and sputters like mad, shaking his head and coughing.

"Good. You're not dead," Sebastian says, trying to sound blasé instead of relieved. "Let's go, princess." Sebastian pulls Kurt from his bar stool, lifting him over his shoulders, while the man with the dilated pupils slaps his hand repeatedly on the bar – the completely clean bar.

"That's about a couple hundred bucks of blow you just washed away there, douche!"

"And?" Sebastian asks, standing to his full height with Kurt hoisted over his shoulders, looking down on the man with pure hate in his eyes.

The man scoffs, but he takes a step back.

"You-you don't frighten me."

"Oh, no?" Sebastian crowds in on him. "Because I just want you to know, I don't need to put my friend down to beat the shit out of you."

The man looks back at him incredulously, trying to figure out in his muddied brain if what Sebastian claims is even possible. When he hesitates, Sebastian asks sternly, "What was it you were saying?"

"Nothing," the man says, backing down. "Just tell your friend there that we're done, alright? He's not hitting me up on credit if he's going to pass out before he pays his tab."

Sebastian smirks – he looks more exhausted than threatening, but it's still effective.

"I'm sure he'll be heartbroken."

No one stops Sebastian as he carries Kurt out of the bar; nobody even gives him a second glance, and Sebastian wonders how many times passed out people get dragged out of there.

A sour pit grows in his stomach.

Had it been someone else carrying Kurt out of there, like that junkie waiting to collect on Kurt's debts, no one would have been suspicious. No one would have called the cops for help.

Kurt could have ended up another face on the morning news if anyone had even realized he was missing.

Once Kurt and Sebastian step outside and the humid breeze hits Kurt's skin, he starts to wake more, slowly coming to his senses.

"Put me down," he slurs, kicking a single leg out, which doesn't go far.

"Your wish is my command," Sebastian says, opening the rear door to his Mustang and tossing Kurt onto the back seat. He's in no way delicate about it, and the fall shakes Kurt awake.

"Hey!" Kurt bellows so loudly that Sebastian can hear him through the rolled-up windows.

"Hey, yourself," Sebastian says, climbing into the driver's seat and shutting the door behind him. "You know, we had an agreement. If you need a fix or a fuck, you call me, right?"

"Fuck off, Sebastian!" Kurt yells, struggling to get up, presumably to get out of the car. "I'll do whatever the fuck I want!"

"Right," Sebastian says, leaning back into his seat and putting a hand to his forehead. Now that he's found Kurt, now that he can sit down for five seconds without his heart trying to pound out of his chest, his head starts to throb. "And you're doing such a stellar job so far. What happened to earning your 60-day chip?"

"Don't care," Kurt mutters.

"Obviously," Sebastian groans, the throbbing in his head becoming a full-blown migraine.

"Look," Kurt says, sitting up in stages, his hand gripping the back of Sebastian's seat, pulling himself up at an angle till he can peek over the edge, "I know Blaine made you promise that you'd look out for me and shit, but that was just to clear his conscious so he didn't have to come visit. He didn't actually mean it."

"I'm not doing this for _Blaine_ , dickhead," Sebastian says, starting to feel nauseous, his adrenaline level dropping into his shoes, his body begging for sleep.

"Then why _are_ you here? You fucking hate me."

Sebastian exhales deep, shutting his eyes, hoping he doesn't conk out without knowing it.

"That's not true."

Kurt laughs, snorting through his nose, then hisses in pain. "When has that not been true? You've always hated me!" Kurt cackles, sending a searing flash of agony through Sebastian's skull.

"I don't…I don't hate you," Sebastian replies through gritted teeth. _But I might start to after tonight._

"Yes, you do," Kurt drunkenly teases, jabbing Sebastian in the back of the neck with a sharp finger and laughing louder.

"Yeah, well, I wish I could," Sebastian snaps, knocking Kurt's hand away. "I wish I could hate you, but I…"

Kurt's laughter withers and he drops back down on the seat with a _thump_.

"But you what?" he asks, rolling onto his back, staring at the ceiling, waiting for an answer.

"I can't, Kurt," Sebastian says. "I just…I just can't hate you anymore."

There's a silence – a thoughtful silence – then Kurt laughs bitterly.

"So, you're playing Mr. Good Guy?" he asks. "Is that it? Like you told Blaine? You gonna…you gonna take care of me and be a saint?"

"No, asshat," Sebastian grumbles. "I thought that we might be friends."

"What makes you think I need any more friends? I got plenty of friends."

"What? That whiskey brain at the bar that fills you with coke?" Sebastian reaches a hand back and slaps Kurt on the thigh to make sure he has Kurt's attention. "And the others? At all the other bars? Are they your friends?"

Kurt weakly brushes Sebastian's hand away when it lingers on his leg too long.

"You wouldn't understand."

"Wouldn't I?" Sebastian looks at the time on his iPhone. 3:12 a.m. _Fuck!_ He'll end up sleeping sweaty and stinking of cigarettes. What he wants to do is jump in a long, hot shower and take some steel wool to his skin. "Well, why don't you enlighten me?"

Sebastian hears Kurt stir in the seat, hears him sniffle.

"Well, excuse the fuck out of me," Kurt says in a shaky voice. "Last time I checked, you still had both your parents."

"So, you're going shove your shit behavior on your dad, is that what you're going to do?" Sebastian chuckles humorlessly. "Because I'll tell you, Hummel, that's just pathetic and sad." Sebastian looks over his shoulder with a glower, needing this to be over before he says something he can't take back. "I thought you were better than that."

"You know, when my father died, _you_ were the one who said there was no wrong way to mourn."

"Yeah, well, I would have been more specific if I knew that your version of mourning was killing yourself."

Kurt starts to cry – quietly, trying to hide it – and Sebastian does his part by turning his attention out the window to other patrons stumbling out of the bar and onto the sidewalk.

He doesn't see Kurt's _friend_ , just other random people.

"What am I _supposed_ to do?" Kurt asks angrily, wiping his eyes on the back of his hand. "I feel like it's all over for me, like I got stuck somewhere and now I don't know how to get out."

Sebastian reaches behind him but this time, instead of smacking Kurt, he takes Kurt's hand and holds it.

"Put it behind you," Sebastian says, "as best you can, and start over. New life, new friends..."

"Are you going to be one of those?" Kurt asks, giving Sebastian's hand a squeeze.

"Yeah," Sebastian says, squeezing back. "I think I'm the only one you've got so far."

Kurt nods. He hates to agree that it's gotten to this point, but yeah. Sebastian is about the only friend he has. Everyone went their separate ways and that was it. The calls and the texts stopped. The Facebook posts became more generic. When he fell off the social media radar entirely, working to get his shit together, not a single one of them noticed.

"How-how do I start?" Kurt stutters, his voice small, raspy from months of doing cocaine.

If he can't get his voice back, it will be his biggest regret.

"I take you to Phoenix House," Sebastian says, outlining the plan he thought of the moment he started driving around searching for Kurt. He thought if he had a plan – if the universe saw that he had a solution to the problem - he'd have a better chance of finding Kurt alive. "They've got a bed waiting. It's a short term residential program. You get clean. You go back to N.A. I'll go with you. You go back to school…"

Kurt sighs and lets go of Sebastian's hand, but Sebastian holds on.

"NYADA won't take me back," Kurt mumbles.

"Then fuck NYADA!" Sebastian turns around completely in his seat and looks Kurt in the face, talking to Kurt's profile. "NYADA isn't the end-all be-all of schools, you know. Go to NYU with me. That way I can keep a fucking eye on you."

Kurt smiles slightly, shifting his eyes.

"You'd do that for me?"

"Are you going to start acting like Kurt Hummel again? Diva fashionista? Or are you going to stick with this hoodlum look you've got going and snort blow till your septum rots? 'cause I'll tell you, none of that is an attractive look."

Kurt laughs – it's only once, but it's a positive sign.

"I'll…I'll try. I promise."

"Then I'll keep an eye on you." Sebastian puts Kurt's hand back down on the seat gingerly. He turns and sits, buckling in and getting ready to go. One more stop in the Bronx, and then finally home.

Kurt curls into a ball on the seat and yawns.

"You know, you're not as big an asshole as you used to be."

"Who told you that?" Sebastian asks playfully, turning his key in the ignition. "I don't remember saying that."

"And you know what? I'm beginning to think you like me."

"You're more like a parasitic mold," Sebastian says, pulling out of his parking spot and heading down the street. He reaches the red light and stops. He looks through the rearview at Kurt, head lulled to the side, eyes closed, wet bangs plastered to his forehead, nose still red but at least not bloody. Sebastian can't judge, not really. He's had days like this, but he always had to pick himself up off the bar and find a way home. That's why he swore to himself – not Blaine, _himself_ – that Kurt wouldn't have to. Kurt starts to snore softly as the light turns green, and Sebastian sighs. "Let's just say you're growing on me."


End file.
